


A New World Shall Open Up

by threewalls



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alien Planet, Alternate Universe - Space, Community: bloodyvalentine, Community: kink_bingo, Community: trope_bingo, Eye Trauma, Gen, Horror, Hubris, Silence, Xeno, alien possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 04:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1027135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chanyeol helps a secret government organisation find a portal capable of travelling to exoplanets. It goes as well as you might expect. (Space AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A New World Shall Open Up

**Author's Note:**

> A sort of Stargate meets Prometheus meets certain clips from the pre-debut teaser trailers and "What is Love" MV. For "au: space" for trope bingo, "eye horror" for bloody bingo, and "gags/silence" for kink bingo.

It wasn't until Chanyeol stepped out of the portal building, out into the harsh sunshine and sand, that he believed they'd actually travelled to another planet. But hanging above the horizon, ghostly in the daylight, there were two moons.

And it was only three weeks ago that what Chanyeol had thought would be a coffee date with Dr. Wu from Linguistics turned into his induction into a secret government agency. They had been very interested in his work on a certain ancient manuscript. 

Chanyeol had argued the twelve symbols repeated throughout the leaves could be identified with the "legends," "forces" and "old gods" mentioned in the poem - a single poem, he'd argued, though the manuscript only preserved fragments of a larger unified whole. He'd had a breakthrough over the summer, finally tracing the manuscript's provenance to a little town - even finding a partial set of stones with the manuscript symbols etched onto them. 

It was the first time in his career that he'd begun talking about how the twelve old gods were extraterrestrials who had once visited Earth and had people taking notes instead of taking their leave. They'd found the portal under the shack where Chanyeol had found the stones, and now he was standing on an exoplanet, somewhere unknown beyond the Solar System. 

Colonel Kim Joonmyun, the expedition's leader, sent Chanyeol to explore - with Lieutenants Kim Jongin and Huang Zitao to keep him out of trouble. They had guns; Chanyeol had a camera. They hadn't seen any signs of life yet, but that was no guarantee they wouldn't discover any, or that the complex in which the portal was built wouldn't have other dangers. 

The structure seemed sound, built of a solid, stable granite. Whoever built the place, they weren't big on windows, and soon Chanyeol and his escort were down to the light of their torches, the light sparkling when it caught on crystals in the rock.

They hit a dead head in their explorations in a large, circular room. There seemed to be some sort of pathway of channels in the floor, each a handspan's width, all stretching to the centre. Chanyeol counted them: twelve. With his torch's beam, he followed the nearest channel back towards them. It met a slightly raised platform, and above that, was a pot.

"Let me check this out first," he said. "It could be delicate."

The pot was tall, the lid coming up to Chanyeol's waist. Through his torch's light, he could see other pots just like it, arranged in a circle around the room. Like in all the other rooms, sand and dust seemed to have covered everything. There were markings on the lid.

Chanyeol brushed away the sand with growing excitement, recognising what he'd found.

"It's the Triangle!" he shouted back to the soldiers.

"What?"

"The triangle!" Chanyeol repeated, "It's one of the twelve symbols!"

The symbol on the next jar was the "fanged beast", and the next, the "unicorn." He moved from jar to jar, brushing off only enough sand to identify the next symbol. 

Chanyeol's favourite was the phoenix. It was one of the last old gods to be mentioned in the poem. How did it go? _That the forces will sleep, but through the phoenix, they will live again._ That seemed pretty awesome. So did setting things on fire.

As luck would have it, he found the phoenix pot almost last. The lid seemed almost warm to the touch, and then -- the symbol flashed, bright green and then cracks appeared in the lid, which crumbled into the dark liquid inside the pot.

"What is it?" Lt. Huang called out. "Dr. Park, are you ok?"

The light from Chanyeol's torch caught movement in the liquid, a ripple that was suddenly a surge, dark liquid crashing over him.

Chanyeol dropped his torch, wiping at his eyes, his mouth. He'd swallowed some of it, he thought, and it was thick on his tongue. And then the oily liquid pressed on his tongue-- he wasn't swallowing it, the liquid was climbing down his throat, more of the oil slick substance forcing his lips open, pouring into his mouth, into his nose. The liquid coated his eyes, trickling between his eyeballs and the sockets. 

Chanyeol felt heat, and fear, and pleasure, and then his hands dropped from his throat. Because something else was controlling them.

He could breathe, somehow, but he could not scream. The thick viscous oil coated his throat, numbing his vocal cords. Chanyeol could hear shouting, at least until the tendrils of oil crept into his ear canals, muffling the outside world.

\---

"Ah, you're awake?" 

The voice was Dr. Zhang, their medic. Chanyeol's eyes opened.

"How are you feeling?" he asked Chanyeol.

Chanyeol shrugged. 

"Well, you've got time to rest up," Dr. Zhang continued. "We're still not sure what happened to you guys up there . We found you three collapsed in a room upstairs. We're not equipped for a full quarantine, but we're stuck on this side of the portal until I can clear you of contagion."

Chanyeol nodded. Movement of the host body was becoming easier, but the host consciousness could not be trusted with any relaxation of the controlled shut down of vocal function.

After Dr. Zhang left him to rest, Chanyeol turned to stare at the bodies of Lieutenants Kim and Huang. They both nodded, and darkness swam across the whites of their eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also commment on my [LJ](http://threewalls.livejournal.com/372464.html) or my [DW](http://threewalls.dreamwidth.org/248764.html).


End file.
